Our lives will never be the same with out you here! We will miss you so much! Your life gave us memories too beautiful to ever forget!

Remembering Ivy…

I remember the 1st day she arrived at Cherished, she was wearing a long blue and white striped sundress. I said I love your dress and with a big smile on her face, she said, OH THANK YOU!! I MADE IT MYSELF!! When she walked through the doors I knew in my heart that this girl was finally home. And it showed, every day she was so thankful to be at Cherished!

Always grateful for what she had, she would often say “thank you for giving me a home and a job”! She always came to work at Cherished studios with such a great attitude, she would walk through the front door of our building and announced her presence to everyone with a very loud “GOOD MORNING’! to anyone who might be within ear an shot! You would hear voices coming from all the office, Good morning Ivy!!

She never met a stranger, where ever she went she made friends with everyone

I don't think she ever forgot a birthday!

She was an Irish girl with fiery red hair, big brown eyes, a huge smile and a REALLY big heart!

She was spunky, quirky and fierce all at the same time.

So very generous she was always paying attention to the things that made others happy and would love to surprise you with a special gift of something that said “I see you”

She loved butterflies! She had them around her everywhere! That’s what she was! Someone who had grown into something beautiful!

Ivy had a really hard life, she was sexually and physically abused since the age of 4.

I believe her life story will continue to help others, that is her legacy.

Ivy loved to share her testimony

Here is an excerpt from her story written last year:

“I came from a home where I was rejected and abused almost every single day

There were 5 of us, I was the oldest

My life started in hotels …my mother would take us with her when she would stay with different men.

By the age of 6 years old

I had already lived in about 100 hotels before

the authorities came and took us into foster care

At 9 years oldI was returned to my mother

That night the abuse from my step father started all over again.

My mother's alcohol and drug addiction left me in charge

I remember walking with my siblings from door to door asking if there was any work that needs to be done so I could provide food for my younger siblings and pay for hotel rooms for our shelter

I remember watching her shoot up right in front of us night after night not knowing if she would wake up.

From 11- 18 I was moved from group home to group home

At 18 I was kicked out with nowhere to go and ended up on the streets

I was diagnosed with Leukemia

I lost of my hair and had to wear wigs

I had a tube coming through my chest and out of my neck

I had no one to turn to, nowhere to go

In Hollywood, I learned how to survive getting in and out of cars with men

I accepted this was my life I didn't know I could do anything else.

I became addicted to crack cocaine

A man said he would help me ….

and then he sold me to a pimp

I thought, At least I had somewhere to belong. All I wanted was love and acceptance even though I knew It was only pretend

One day an officer found me on the street high and dripping wet

I had been out for days and decided to wash my clothes in a nearby sink

He told me he was taking me in

I tried to deny being high

He said I need to get off the street to get some rest

I asked him how I could do it and he told be about Dream center

I check in and stayed for 1 year

Dream center heard about Kate and Cherished

Kate came down to meet me she had just opened her home

and I asked her if I could come there

Well…I've been at Cherished now for 1 year (this month)!!

I love living in the home, taking their classes, going to therapy and Celebrate Recovery working in the studio making amazing organic bath and body products!

I want to go back to school and get my diploma and stay on at Cherished after I graduate and become the PR product manager!

(She always made us laugh with her excitement in that, we all knew what a good PR person she was naturally!)

1 month after her 1 year here at Cherished, Ivy and I went to Connecticut to visit her step mother to celebrate her 2 years clean and her completion of 1 year at Cherished. She was able to visit her father's ashes and have some closure over her loss of him (he had passed while she was away). During our visit, she learned of some tragic news, that her brother, mother, and sister had all passed while she was “in the life”. It was too much for her heart to bare. Her dreams of reuniting with them one day had come to an end.

Ivy relapsed.

4 days later I set out on another mission to find her and I did, I found her out on the street. I pulled over and she got in my car to talk for just a minute. She said she was thankful I came to find her but she could not return, it was too hard to quit now. She said it wasn't fair after all she had done that she should live and her family should have died.

We never stop looking or hoping!

.... every day we have waited for her to come back home to Cherished.

We recently learned that 10 days later, she was found in a hotel where she had died of an overdose.

We are heartbroken! Ivy, We can't stop thinking of you! Your story lives on here!

We commit to help women who are addicted to getting free! We won't stop!